GNS The Big Picture

[jburneko]

Hello All,

I wanted to address some of Fangs comments he made down in the "Name That Style" thread.  The things he said reminded me of something I think WE ALL forget from time to time.

The GNS Model is, correct me if I'm wrong, first and foremost about SYSTEM DESIGN.  We end up aplying the terms to player goals and preferences because more often than not a persons goals line up with the design goals of the systems they like to play.

I think Fang is right in that most of his examples down below fall outside the GNS model or perhaps can be vaguely seen as fiting inside one of the three catagories.  But I think the key difference is that most of his examples are subtle nuances that occur inside the specific player's mind and can not ultimately be reflected in the actual system design.

GNS is designed to catagories modes of play that can actually be reflected in system design.  This is why Immersion is such a weird and tricky thing.  Sure, Immersion can be a goal of a player but there's no way in hell a game system can fasciliate that.  Immersion as a player goal is outside GNS but it is not outside GNS in terms of system design because a system can not by its application fascilitate Immersion.

I could do a point by point analysis of Fang's stated cases but I think my point is clear.  In summary:

I think it is possible for human player goals to fall outside GNS.  However, I think those human goals that DO fall outside GNS can not be supported directly in a game's system design and therefore GNS has no business addressing them.  They can be addressed elsewhere such as stances or human motivators or planning techniques any of the other categories of things that have nothing to do with GNS orientation.

Clear?

Jesse

[Mike Holmes]

I quite disagree.

Not that I agree with Fang's assessment either. But game designs can and do address such things as Immersion and other stuff that may seem to be outside the realm of GNS. As I see it, GNS is about how players prefer to make decisions regarding their characters in RPGs such that these activities are fun for them. As such it is a useful tool in designing RPGs, but I also think it has other uses. And it is certainly not the end-all tool. It is merely one (a potentially very effective one), and of limited scope at that.

As such, there are other areas of design that have little to nothing to do with GNS. And game designs each address these areas more or less effectively. Take setting. A simple, well-thought-out, backdrop setting is nobody's enemy. Some games do it well, other's do not. Has nothing to do with GNS, but can certainly be discussed outside of that context.

I will also reiterate that I feel that GNS has only really been considered with any thoroughness in the concept of Tabletop RPGs, and may have much more limited application, if any, if applied to activities outside of that.

So, I would say that Jesse is over-extending the actual applicability of GNS and saying that only things that game design can't affect are outside it's scope. While Fang is assuming that GNS is intended to cover everything about game design but fails. This seems to me to be ascribing attributes to it that are impractical, and (if we asked Ron) probably not intended.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Sigh. Why must this be about "intent"? The parameters of the theory are laid out in gruesome detail already.

1) Role-playing in the broadest sense is the big category, the box holding everything else. We can discuss all manner of things that it fulfils or accomplishes, tons of them. Hell, "marriage as an outcome of role-playing" is a fine topic some day.

2) Among all those topics, ONE thing we can discuss is goals. And I have stated clearly and repeatedly that these break up into (a) goals of being together as humans and (b) goals of the role-playing act itself. GNS is a set of goals for the role-playing act itself.

So we've already left a ton of things behind, that GNS is not about and has never been about. There appears to be some notion out there that my take on these goals is supposed to be accounting for anything and everything that anyone ever did with "role-playing" as an inclusive term. I never claimed that and consider it ridiculous.

3) To continue, it's not surprising that within that context of "goals for the act of role-playing," that the different options or types (GNS) have consequences for things like procedures and standards of play. Since the written, textual side of role-playing is often about those procedures and standards, then not surprisingly, GNS turns out to be relevant for them ("system does matter").

It really is that simple. Of course GNS is not about "anything to do with role-playing." Of course we can identify tons of things in the realms in which it is not relevant. Identifying and discussing them does not falsify or challenge GNS at all. Nor am I claiming these things are irrelevant or uninteresting.

These points are all explicit in the first and last chapters of the essay - that goals as I discuss in that essay are embedded in a social context with parameters and concerns of its own.

TO SUM UP
In the "Name That Style" thread, Jesse describes people who are getting together for role-playing night, but who are not (apparently) bringing in much imaginative commitment (Exploration as defined in the essay). There you go. That answers the question - it really is that easy. They are getting together mainly for other reasons, for which GNS is not going to be relevant.

I suppose we could examine the minimal Exploration that's going on and parse it into goals-terms for that group, although as usual I hesitate to do such a thing from a distance.

Best,
Ron

[Le Joueur]

Ron Edwards wrote:

"Marriage as an outcome of role-playing" is a fine topic some day.

That'd be me.  Or is it "...as a consequence of role-playing?"   Or "Children as...?"

Anyway.

Fang Langford